Job Check
Firefighters
Control and extinguish fires or respond to emergency situations where life, property, or the environment is at risk. Duties may include fire prevention, emergency medical service, hazardous material response, search and rescue, and disaster assistance.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Rescue survivors from burning buildings, accident sites, and water hazards.Mostly human for now
- 02Administer first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation to injured persons or provide emergency medical care such as basic or advanced life support.Mostly human for now
- 03Dress with equipment such as fire-resistant clothing and breathing apparatus.Mostly human for now
- 04Move toward the source of a fire, using knowledge of types of fires, construction design, building materials, and physical layout of properties.Mostly human for now
- 05Drive and operate fire fighting vehicles and equipment.Mostly human for now
- 06Respond to fire alarms and other calls for assistance, such as automobile and industrial accidents.Mostly human for now
- 07Search to locate fire survivors.Mostly human for now
- 08Operate pumps connected to high-pressure hoses.Mostly human for now
- 09Maintain contact with fire dispatchers at all times to notify them of the need for additional firefighters and supplies, or to detail any difficulties encountered.AI could speed this up a lot
- 10Extinguish flames and embers to suppress fires, using shovels or engine- or hand-driven water or chemical pumps.Mostly human for now
Tasks from O*NET® 31.0 (US Department of Labor, CC BY 4.0, changed by us), most important first. “Already use” comes from Anthropic’s data on real work chats with Claude; “could speed up” from task ratings made with GPT-4 in 2023.
Four studies, side by side
None is a forecast of job lossToo little dataNot enough work use was seen to measure. This does not mean the job is safe from AI.Anthropic, 2026
14%of this job’s tasks an AI model could do in half the time, counting tasks that need extra tools as half (rated in 2023).Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock, 2023
Above 18% of jobsin how often and how well AI helped with this job’s work in Microsoft Copilot chats (2024 data).Microsoft Research (Tomlinson et al.), 2025
Above 57% of jobsin how much of this job’s physical work robots have been shown to do, from factories to homes (2026).Anthropic, 2026
Your human edge
The main tasks with no real AI use seen and no big speed-up expected. This is where your skill counts most today.
- Rescue survivors from burning buildings, accident sites, and water hazards.
- Administer first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation to injured persons or provide emergency medical care such as basic or advanced life support.
- Dress with equipment such as fire-resistant clothing and breathing apparatus.